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IWMC - World Conservation Trust
MAINPAGE
SUSTAINABLE USE

2nd Symposium
Journal of
Sustainable Use
Introduction

Table of Contents
I Ceremonial
II Terrestrial
Resources
 Successful
 Initiatives
III  Aquatic Resources
IV Issues of Relevance

The Phenomenal Growth and
Significance of Big Game Hunting
Mr. John J. Jackson, III
Chairman of the Conservation Force

Big game hunting is also at the base of the growth of non-resident hunting. Most, hunters that hunt outside of their home states are big game hunters, three out of every four. Those nonresident big game hunters typically provide 85% of the conservation revenue in the western states of the U. S. A. Resident hunters have not always responded favorably to this competition for the resource from outsiders. They have established legislative and regulatory restraints in the form of nonresident license fees priced 20 times higher than resident fees and by placing limits on the number of nonresident licenses. Conservation Force is leading the legal challenge to those restraints in trade that are holding wildlife and land values artificially low.

There is another form of nonresident hunting that has taken off due to the growth of big game hunting, that is big game hunting in foreign lands or so called "safari hunting." This has increased conservation opportunities never before possible. In the last quarter of a century the number of safari clubs in America have gone from 2 (the Shikar Safari Club International and African Safari Club of Florida) to nearly 200. The largest of them is Safari Club International with 1100 booths hawking safaris and safari equipment at its Annual Convention.

New conservation opportunities abound because of this form of big game hunting. There would be no CAMPFIRE Association, Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust, BOP parks, Inuit Hunting Associations, many conservancies or other programs without big game hunting -and these have only evolved over the past 10 years. From the safari hunting of elephants in Africa that generates 50 million dollars of foreign fortex to Markhor hunting in Pakistan and the polar bear hunting of the Arctic North, big game hunting is a significant part of the wildlife and habitat conservation equation - it is part of the solution - a force for conservation.

Conclusion

I have really been talking about sustainable use. Hunting, and today that means Big Game Hunting, has become a time-tested form of sustainable use with its vast array of benefits. In North America, licensed, regulated hunting is recognized as the single greatest conservation development of the 20th century (Geist). It has been the conservation status quo. Today that means big game hunting. Big Game Hunting has the greatest growth, has had it for the longest term and that growth exceeds everything else and has the most devoted followers. It is at the top of the conservation paradigm in North America as we enter the 21st century. It will continue to be one of the foremost forces for conservation.

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